CHICO >> Whether in Chico or more than 5,000 miles away in Cambridge, England, drunks behave pretty much the same.

During a recent visit to the United States, Katharine Lingwood was thrilled for the opportunity to walk Chico's late-night sidewalks with local Street Pastors. As a member of the same program in the United Kingdom, she was eager to see how the experiences match up.

As it turned out, pretty close.

"People are always going to drink and people are always going to drink too much," she said. "Then they end up in a position where they are vulnerable."

Street Pastors' purpose is to address immediate needs or solve non-criminal problems that tend to occur around late-night weekend drinking scenes. Whether calling taxis and ambulances for drunken young adults, lending ears to the distraught or offering help to the homeless, they aim to aid.

Street Pastors started in London in 2003 to address spiraling crime with a Christian presence of care, and has since had notable success in the United Kingdom and other countries. Chico is the program's United States debut and has about 40 volunteers who work in weekly rotations.

Chico's Street Pastors hit downtown sidewalks in August, patrolling from Salem to Wall streets and from First to Eighth streets in groups of six every Friday and Saturday from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m.

A night in Chico

On a recent Saturday, as Lingwood and five others shared a pre-patrol prayer, the sound of downtown revelry could be heard winding up. A line was forming outside the Crazy Horse and 20-somethings were walked the streets between the watering holes.

The pastors' night started timidly, chatting with a hot dog vendor, handing out lollipops, listening to passersby pause to read the names on their jackets aloud. Students weren't back in school yet, so activity was minimal but that didn't deter the group. "If you are out there and find that one person who needs to talk to somebody and we can be that person, great," Lingwood said.

They soon stumbled upon a heavily intoxicated, well-dressed middle-aged man sitting on the curb at the corner of West Fourth Street and Broadway. At first contact, he told the street pastors to mind their own business but soon was sharing his life story and explained he was hoping to get picked up by the police.

Not long after they went on their way, so did he, instead of sitting on the street waiting to be arrested like he had planned.

After a short midnight break at their base off Third Street and Broadway, streets were starting to get lively. There was a fight at LaSalle's where people spilled into the street and the pastors spent much of their last hours simply conversing with people, mostly about why they were there.

"There wasn't anybody in particular who needed our help," Lingwood said. "But a lot of the first year of Street Pastors is getting the word out about what we are doing, making our presence known ... We found that in Cambridge. A lot of people want to know who these weird people are out at 2 a.m."

Twin cities

Despite their distance, Chico and Lingwood's home in the U.K. are fairly similar. Cambridge has two universities, a slightly bigger homeless population, and a downtown core with five nightclubs and 20 bars in a one-mile radius.

Like in Chico, the U.K. pastors carry gear with them, except they put it in a "rucksack" instead of a backpack. They also carry a dustpan and broom for cleaning up broken glass, hair-ties for holding back girls' hair when they are vomiting, a wind-up cellphone charger and treats for homeless dogs.

On any given weekend night, Lingwood will be handing out flip-flops to drunken women, using an intoxicated man's cellphone to track down his friends, or consoling someone with a broken heart.

"There's a need for some people to be out there who aren't related to law enforcement, who can offer help when people need it," she said.

They want to make sure people get home safely and have a better end to their nights, she said. "We are out there to show what Jesus would have been doing," she said. "We are there to love people."

Lingwood happened to be sitting in the crowd at Neighborhood Church in 2012, while she was in Chico for discipleship training, when Rev. Andrew Burchett announced his idea to start Street Pastors in the United States. The U.K. resident could barely sit still for the rest of the service, as she was so eager to talk to him.

A math teacher, she has been a Street Pastor for about five years in Cambridge, after being recruited by a man at her church. Before that, she had always avoided her city's downtown area on weekend nights, knowing it was a place for unruliness.

"It was a no-go zone. Who wants to be around a lot of falling-down-drunk people, vomiting in the street?" she said.

Instead, she realized she'd like to be part of the solution, and today is one of 5,000 Street Pastors throughout the United Kingdom. Lingwood has been impressed with Chico's start, and said she sees great potential for its pastors making a difference.

"It was really good to be a part of it. I'll be interested in following it wherever I am," she said. "I wanted to see something I had a very small part in starting"